Suzhou City in Jiangsu Province has made great efforts to protect and restore the environment along the Yangtze River in recent years, building flagship projects of Zhangjiagang Bay and Taicang Wetland Park as the city is in full swing to pursue green industrial development.
The city has 157.96 kilometers of shoreline of Yangtze River, country’s longest waterway, mainly in Zhangjiagang, Changshu and Taicang, all under the administration of Suzhou.
Wetland scenery along the Yangtze River in Taicang. [Photo/CFP]
Zhangjiagang Bay, the first bend formed when the river meets the sea, is 12 kilometers long. Since September last year, Zhangjiagang has been carrying out renovation to shift nine kilometers of shoreline originally used for production into ecological zones. Through many environmental protection initiatives, Changshu has also built up a green economic ring with 65 percent of the river’s shorelines designated for ecological roles. The green area and the natural wetland area along the river increased to 7,805 mu and over 10, 000 mu, respectively. Taicang has focused on creating a "green corridor" spanning 10,000 mu along the river, including parks to improve people’s life.
Suzhou shut down some low-end and inefficient chemical enterprises in the riverside area, and then bring high-quality firms. Since 2016, the city closed 545 chemical enterprises, of which 251 were located in Zhangjiagang, Changshu and Taicang. Zhangjiagang closed 386 low-end inefficient enterprises in 2019 alone.
Such massive measures aim to boost local sustainable development. To take an example, Taicang Biomedical Industrial Park, established in 2012, has attracted about 40-50 biomedical firms each year to settle in, including those from Beijing, Shanghai and Yangtze River Delta.
In the development, Suzhou has closely integrated industrial restructuring and ecological restoration of the Yangtze River. It has promoted the incremental development of green industries, built a platform to facilitate their development, enhanced the innovation capability, transformed ecological advantages into economic development strengths, and turned the city into a role-model of green development.
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